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Nintendo World Report Tournament of GOTY 2017

The Final Four

by the NWR Staff - January 29, 2018, 6:56 am PST

With two clear favorites, will we see an upset in the finals?

Here we go - we’re down to the Final Four! In all likelihood, this is building towards the inevitable battle between Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, but it’s super cool SteamWorld Dig 2 made it this far and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is neat. Let’s recap the last round before we get to that, though.

Breath of the Wild beat Xenoblade Chronicles 2 76% to 24%. Xenoblade 2 had a good run, taking down Splatoon 2 along the way. In all likelihood, that game’s star should only brighten as time goes on.

SteamWorld Dig 2 beat Rocket League 66% to 34%, a somewhat stunning trouncing from Image & Form’s beloved Nindie. Dig 2 enters the Final Four as the only remaining third-party game.

Super Mario Odyssey had the highest margin of victory, beating Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle 87% to 13%, making Odyssey the odds-on favorite to win this whole thing. Not even the stunning quality of a Ubisoft/Nintendo collaboration could slow down Odyssey’s dominance.

While the way the bracket fell helped prop these two games up in this spot, it’s still impressive Arms made it this far and still, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe beat it quite handily to the tune of 63% to 37% - the closest of this round.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo; March 3) vs. SteamWorld Dig 2 (Image & Form; September 21)

Gotta feel bad about those wild cards. Even if they make it to the Sweet Sixteen, they're pretty much gonna be crushed by heavy weights Odyssey, BotW and MK8. However, Steamworld Dig 2 might have a shot against Metroid 2: Samus Returns since the majority opinion seems to be that it's a fine enough game with a couple nice additions but not quite the Metroid experience hoped for. It doesn't quite wow as other games in the series. So, it might be possible for an early upset there. I suppose MK8 might have detractors by being a port but considering its sales that doesn't seem to be a concern for most Switch users.

It was always going to be Zelda and Mario in the finals, but this really highlights just what a tremendous year 2017 was for Nintendo. Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Breath of the Wild, and Super Mario Odyssey in year one of a console is still amazing to me.